Analysis of Citations in Undergraduate Papers

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a citation analysis of papers written by undergraduate students. The analysis included the types of materials cited, number of citations per paper, publication year, online availability, and refereed status of materials cited. Library ownership of materials was also analyzed. Number of citations in each paper increased over the first three papers, as did the number of refereed journals cited. There was also a positive correlation between the number of citations in the paper and the word count of the paper.itation analysis is a useful method to gather information about the materials students have available when writing papers. Student citations offer an opportunity to assess library collections and services. A library's collections can be compared to works cited to see if they hold the items used most o en by students. Citations can also be analyzed to determine the format, date, and refereed status of the materials cited. This kind of data is useful in determining whether or not information literacy programs are effective in encouraging the use of scholarly sources.This project began with the desire to improve the collections and instruction services at Eastern Illinois University's Booth Library by be er understanding which sources undergraduate students were citing in their papers. We discovered that our campus had already built a depository of student papers to assess student writing. This collection included papers drawn from the entire undergraduate student body, with papers collected from the same student periodically to show changes over time. This collection of papers is unique because it represents truly authentic examples of student writing. Students were free to submit any paper they considered representative of their writing ability. As there were not strict criteria in place, and each paper was also a graded assignment, the papers submi ed by the students offer a snapshot of genuine student writing. This paper collection contains accurate representations of the papers students write for course credit. The study of this excellent collection of student work provides baseline data for future instruction and information literacy programs. It also serves to collect evidence to guide collection development by describing the types of materials students cite, their use of online resources, and the availability of materials cited in the library's collection. Literature ReviewCitation analysis has a long history as a collection development tool. Librarians have examined citations to determine the

Citation Analysis as a Tool for Collection Development and Instruction

“…For journals, the standard indication of quality is whether they are peer reviewed, and several studies looked at peer review status in their analysis of student bibliographies (Bennett and Brothen 2010;Knight-Davis and Sung 2008). Other studies distinguished between scholarly journal articles, classified as such due to their incorporation of heavy research and expert analysis, and less scholarly periodicals, such as magazines and newspapers (Carlson 2006, Davis 2000.…”

“…Librarians at Arcadia University conducted an evaluation that combined the two goals. Unlike studies that see student citations as a reliable indicator of student needs (Haycock 2004;Waugh and Ruppel 2004) or those that evaluate student work according to librarian-determined criteria (Beile, Boote, and Killingsworth 2004;Knight-Davis and Sung 2008;Ursin, Lindsay, and Johnson 2004), this analysis takes a combined approach. The data both inform librarians about students so that the library can focus collection development toward their needs and also helps the library evaluate students' research behaviors in order to more effectively target information literacy instruction.…”

“…In contrast, studies whose goals are primarily instructional evaluate student work. These studies use some of the same data, but with a predetermined idea of what students should be citing-usually peer-reviewed journal articles (Bennett and Brothen 2010;Knight-Davis and Sung 2008;Robinson and Schlegl 2004). The goals are to improve instruction so that students learn to cite more appropriate materials.…”

Using Assessment Data to Inform Library Instruction for First Year Students

“…We developed a rubric based on ones used in other recent studies (Knight-Davis & Sung, 2008;Mill, 2008) and assigned a unique code to various types of information sources:…”

Measuring the Effect of Virtual Librarian Intervention on Student Online Search

“…The quality of bibliographies is often measured by the student's use of scholarly sources, which is obtained by grading each citation against a set of standard scoring criteria (e.g. Davis & Cohen, 2001, Knight-Davis & Sung, 2008, Young & Ackerson, 1995. However, it is difficult to apply these criteria to online sources, as many formats such as blogs, forums, and digital repositories do not fit neatly into the traditional bibliographic format categories.…”